Comments on: Review: Evan Ziporyn’s A House in Bali

By: Tempo Dulu

Tempo Dulu — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:52:35 +0000

But is it fun?

By: Stanley Moon

Stanley Moon — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:44:31 +0000

…oh, and one other thing. There is a band from Cambridge called Vivian Darkbloom. I don’t believe their identity is a secret and since Evan Ziporyn is associated with Cambridge I figured you might be friends. That is, unless you are actually Vladimir Nabokov, in which case I apologize for the error.

By: Stanley Moon

Stanley Moon — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:32:39 +0000

And you are a fountain of snark. Thanks for another teaching moment.

By: Vivian Darkbloom

Vivian Darkbloom — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:04:24 +0000

I do apologize to the readership for flaming, that was intemperate, and deserving of chastisement, however wrongheaded I believe Mr. McDonagh to be. I would apologize with a personal e-mail to Mr. Moon, but I don’t believe in transgressing people’s privacy in that way. Apparently he disagrees, having creepily made me feel as if I’m being stalked. Thanks much for that, Stanley, you’re a model of web etiquette for us all.

By: Stanley Moon

Stanley Moon — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:58:33 +0000

or a valid criterion!

By: Stanley Moon

Stanley Moon — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:55:57 +0000

Vivian, calling us all idiots is certainly not the best way to make a convincing argument, or the best way to do anything. And your tone seems unduly sniping and personal. I understand you’re from Cambridge, so that might explain something. What a few of us are saying is that McPhee made pretty strong statements that suggest he acted out on his impulses liberally. He never explicitly stated that the boy was included in this, but he surely hinted at it. So, while the statement that “there is no way of knowing” can be parsed as factually correct, it still suggests an unwillingness to know. The reviewer didn’t condemn the opera. He found it musically very resourceful, but felt that it lacked psychological depth. That’s a point with which I can’t agree or disagree, having not seen the work, but it is a valid criteria in the judgement of an opera.

By: Michael McDonagh

Michael McDonagh — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:58:52 +0000

Sex is always the heart of the matter

By: Vivian Darkbloom

Vivian Darkbloom — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:17:35 +0000

Re Stanley Moon, how would the composer have ANY way of knowing what happened behind closed doors in a village in Bali in 1935? No one disputes that McPhee (and Walter Spies, and numerous others) HAD SEX with Balinese men in the 1930s, and very few dispute that they probably had sex with people under the age of 18. What the composer CLEARLY said – for anyone who ‘did their homework’ – was that he had no way of knowing whether McPhee had sex WITH SAMPIH, who of course was 9 years old at the time.

I’m not sure who’s more idiotic here, the original reviewer (though that’s a high standard to beat) or Stanley Moon.

That being said, I agree with BipperBali – anyone paying attention (or without some kind of axe to grind) would realize that this was not what the piece was about. It’s only worthy of discussion because McDonagh’s original comments are so distorted and foolish.

By: BipperBali

BipperBali — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:12:09 +0000

I was there and I can’t wholly support this review. To me, the portrait of the man was a glimpse into this stolen moment in history in this forgotten island. The music was meant to capture that idyllic existence. As far as McPhee’s relationship to the boy? Who cares. I felt his homosexuality was a marginal element to the whole drama. It’s about as newsworthy as people visiting Indonesia today to have sex with young boys. Again, who cares?
The drama hung its hat on two things: McPhee’s motivation for being there, and how it changed him. His legacy is capturing the music of that time (which was disappearing) and preserving it through his work. It made it to us through him. It continues to reach us through works like “A House in Bali” and that was the point! His experience with Sampih was a part of his experience there. However it was not THE experience while he was there.

By: Michael McDonagh

Michael McDonagh — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 08:41:22 +0000

Hello Jerry

Thanks for including my last graph.

I should have noted that Ziporyn also conducted.

Michael